A car bomb exploded near a Baghdad girls school today, killing six people, a day after 49 Iraqis died in a string of explosions, suicide attacks and drive-by shootings.

Today's blast occurred in a Christian neighbourhood, destroying at least three cars and damaging several buildings.

It came as the US military announced that a two-day operation with more than 2,000 Iraqi soldiers and police had rounded up 428 suspected insurgents.

But insurgents continued to wreak havoc in the Iraqi capital despite the crackdown on the Abu Ghraib area targeting militants thought responsible for attacks on the US-detention facility there and the city-airport road link.

* The board monitoring Iraq's oil revenue accused Iraq's interim government of mishandling about 100 million dollars in oil money meant for development.

The International Advisory and Monitoring Board also said the US Coalition Provisional Authority had used questionable accounting practices with development fund money.